


Mirrors

by calendarpages



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calendarpages/pseuds/calendarpages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Blaine looks at himself in the mirror, he doesn't see a boy who's made mistakes, he sees a monster.<br/>A post 4x04 reaction fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirrors

On Blaine’s first night back in Ohio he stands stark naked in front of his bathroom mirror and examines his reflection. He’s felt dirty since the day _it_ happened, but now that Kurt knows he imagines that there should be some physical trace of the great wrong that he’s committed. The scars from the Sadie Hawkins dance are still there, silvery fault lines criss-crossing his upper body. He traces a finger up the most prominent scar, moving from the jut of his hipbone to the top of his ribcage. 

He used to be disgusted by his scars, going to extreme measures to keep them hidden, but when he and Kurt had finally decided to be intimate, he’d made no effort to cover himself up. He shivers as he lets himself sink back into that night, feeling the gentle caress of Kurt’s lips as he kissed across each one of his imperfections, wiping away the memory of the hatred they've both had to endure.

Blaine watches his reflection in rapt fascination as the first tears slip silently down his face. His sobs are ugly and loud, punctuated only by jagged gasps for air and the desperate sound of dry-heaving as he empties his stomach into the toilet. When he finally falls asleep, cold and naked on the bathroom floor, his last conscious thought is that this must be what it feels like to be well and truly broken.

Reality comes in waves. Blaine has already had the pain; felt it sharp and immediate on that terrible night in New York City. Now all he has left is the numbness. He goes through the motions; school, glee, homework, sleep, lather, rinse and repeat. He wonders blindly when the guilt will start. It’s been lingering in back of his consciousness since _that night_ and he anticipates its arrival with a grim sense of excitement. 

At least then he’ll be able to feel again. 

Kurt doesn’t call, not that Blaine expected him to. He knows in the abstract how their relationship is supposed to play out; Kurt, as the wronged party, is expected to curse Blaine’s name, sing spiteful songs in his memory, and then move on with his life. Blaine isn’t entitled to anything. He’s The Cheater, and that makes him scum. 

He certainly feels the part.

Unfortunately, his heart has yet to catch up with his brain. It still yearns for Kurt, aching for it’s missing half like an open wound aches to be stitched together. The conflict is like a constant throbbing in his head. He hears the repeating question of, “ _Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy_?” as a never ending drum beat that permeates his every thought. He knows why, or at least he thinks he knows, but for some reason his mind refuses to cooperate. 

And so it festers. The devastation and grief become guilt and self-loathing. The frustration with himself is endless, a feverish clenching of his gut every time it crosses his mind. He’d predicted this bitter ending before he and Kurt had even attempted commitment. He was bad with relationships, and even worse with romance. How had he ever been so selfish as to let Kurt give him his heart, as special and pure as it was? He’d done it because he was weak, he'd  always been weak, and Kurt was just too stunning to resist.

Of course, their love had turned out to be even more stunning. It’d been exotic and bursting with passion; a pair of gay teenagers who found each other in homophobic Ohio, each broken in his own way but made whole by the other. Blaine accepts that he’ll never feel as complete as he did when he and Kurt were together. Being one half of a whole is both a blessing and a curse.

The love is a hundred times stronger, but so is the pain when it inevitably goes sour. 

In accepting this, Blaine learns that he is extraordinarily good at exactly two things; running away from things that scare him and living behind a mask. After his break up with Kurt, he employs both skills in full force; but on the inside, he’s screaming. 

When he returns to school, Blaine waits patiently for either Sam or Artie to catch wind of what he did and give him the beating he knows he deserves. Every time there’s a knock at the door he half expects it to be Burt Hummel, shotgun in hand, ready to avenge his son’s broken heart. When nothing happens, he wonders why Kurt didn’t make Blaine’s crime public. Blaine deserves to be punished; he’s deserved every bit of pain he’s choked down and more. So much more. 

Two months after he’s returned from New York, Blaine looks in the mirror again and is pleased to see the physical marker he’d been searching for from the start. His face is mostly unchanged, crisp and put together as always, but his eyes are dull. Kurt had always loved his eyes, citing his mother when he told Blaine that a person with bright eyes  is a person with a good heart. This time, Blaine doesn’t cry.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, okay, this fic is basically just my brain vomit as a result of the train wreck that was The Break Up. It is entirely unedited, and written in a period of about an hour, so please excuse any mistakes and general choppiness.


End file.
